Saturday, 2 February 2013

My teacher was an articulate homosexual activist who was
arguing, at Boston College, that “Catholic” and “gay” are as compatible
as ham and eggs. I respected the clarity and intelligence of his mind
and the openness and apparent goodwill of his heart, so I hoped that our
conversation might open and clarify both our minds and teach us
something new. (This almost never happens when these two sides argue
about this subject.)

I was not disappointed.

I shall try and reconstruct our dialogue with a minimum of additions
and polishings, as I like to believe Plato did to Socrates in his early
dialogues. For purposes of anonymity, I shall call my dialogue partner
“Art.”

PETER: Art, I’m really curious about one point of your argument, one
part I just don’t understand. And I believe in listening before arguing,
as you said you do. So I’m not trying to argue now—that’s not the point
of my question—but first of all to listen and to understand. OK?

ART: Of course. What’s the point you don’t understand?

PETER: Well, to explain that, I have to ask you to listen too, to where I’m coming from.

ART: And where’s that?

PETER: Just the teachings of the Bible and the Church, all of them. I
know you don’t believe all of them, only some. But I do. So from my
point of view, what you do, and what you justify doing, is a sin. That’s
the label you reject, right?

ART: Right. So what don’t you understand?

PETER: Please don’t take this as a personal insult, or even an
argument, but I know of no other way of phrasing it than with biblical
language, which you will probably find offensive. My question is this:
Why are you guys the only class of sinners who not only deny that your
sin is sin but insist on identifying yourself with it? We’re all
sinners, in one way or another, and I’m not assuming your sins are worse
than mine, but at least I think I’m more than my sins, whatever they
are. I love the sinner but hate the sin. But you don’t do you?

ART: No, I don’t. What I hate is that hypocritical distinction.

PETER: Why?

ART: Because when you attack homosexuality, you attack homosexuals. It’s that simple.

PETER: But alcoholics don’t say that the Church attacks alcoholics
when she attacks alcoholism. And cowards don’t say that they are their
cowardice. And murderers don’t say the church is hypocritical for
condemning their sin but no them, the sinners. Adulterers don’t deny the
distinction between the adulterer and the adultery. The only group of
sinners I’ve ever heard of who do this is you. And it seems to me you
all do that, you always say that. All gays say that. Don’t they?

ART: Yes, we do. And I forgive you for being to insensitive that you
don’t realize that you’ve done right now what you defend the Church for
doing: insulting and rejecting me, and not just what I do.

PETER: Wait a minute here! You’re saying that when I make that
distinction between what you are and what you do, when I accept what you
are as distinct from what you do, I’m rejecting what you are? How can I
be rejecting what you are in accepting what you are?

ART: No, listen: In trying to separate what I do from what I am,
you’re trying to separate my body from my soul, my sex life from my
identity. That’s what you’re doing by insisting on that distinction.
Your distinction between what you call the “sinner” and the “sin” is
really death to me; it’s the separation of body and soul, deed and
identity. I’m holding the two together; you’re trying to pull them
apart, and that’s death.

PETER: That’s sophistical. That’s an argument that just doesn’t fit
the facts. Look at the facts instead of the argument. This is what the
church believes about you—what I believe about you: you can be a saint!
You have dignity. The Church thinks more highly of you than you think of
yourself. She loves your being more than you do; that’s why she hates
your sins against your being. We believe your self is greater than your
deeds, whatever they are. But you don’t.

ART: The Church and the Bible will tell me I’m an abomination to God.

PETER: No! Not in your person, only in your sins, just like the rest
of us, like all of us. That’s Paul’s point in Romans 1. He’s condemning
hypocritical condemnation of pagan homosexuals by straight Jews just as
much as he’s condemning pagan homosexuality.

ART: The Church is my enemy.

PETER: The Church is your friend. Because the Church tells us two
things about you, not just one, and she will never change either one,
she never can change either one, because both are matters of
unchangeable natural law, based on eternal law, based on the very nature
of God. She can’t ever say that what you do is good for the same reason
that she can’t ever say that what you are is bad. She defends your
being just as absolutely as she attacks your lifestyle; she hates your
cancer because she loves your body. It’s the same authority for both.
The authority you hate when it condemns what you do is your only
reliable ally in defending what you are. You want the Church to change
her teaching on what you do, and you’re trying to put social pressure on
her to do that, but if she did that, then she could change her teaching
on what you are, too, for the same reason, under social pressures. I’m
sure you know that the old social pressures to hate homosexuals are far
from dead. You know what happened in Hitler’s Germany. You know how
changeable and fickle mankind is—and how dangerous. When the last
bastion of absolute moral law is compromised, when even the Church bends
to the winds of social pressure, what shelters will you have then?

ART: I’m not worried about the Left; I’m worried about the Right.

PETER: Today, maybe, but what about tomorrow? Today the fashion is
the be Leftist, but just a short time ago the fashion was from the
Right, and tomorrow it may swing to the Right again, like a pendulum.
You can’t rely on fashionable opinions to protect you. That’s building
sandcastles. The tides always change and knock them down.

ART: I’ll take my chances, thank you. I don’t know what will happen
in the future, I grant you that. But I know what’s happening now, and I
can’t take that. We just can’t take your “love the sinner, hate the sin”
distinction. That much we know.

PETER: You still haven’t explained to me why. I began by asking that
question, and I really want an answer. I want to know what’s going on in
your mind.

ART: OK, I think I can explain it to you. You say I shouldn’t feel threatened by that distinction, right?

PETER: Right.

ART: You say the Church tells me she loves me, even though she hates what I do, right?

PETER: Right.

ART: Well, suppose the shoe was on the other foot. Suppose you were
in the minority. Suppose what you wanted to do was to have churches and
sacraments and Bibles and prayers, and those in power said to you: “We
hate that. We hate what you do. We will do all in our power to stop you
from doing what you do. But we love you. We love what you are. We love
Christians, we just hate Christianity. We love worshippers; we just hate
worship. And we’re going to put every possible pressure on you to feel
ashamed about worshipping and make you repent of your sin of worshiping.
But we love you. We affirm your being. We just reject your doing.” Tell
me, how would that make you feel? Would you accept their distinction?

PETER: You know, I never thought of it that way. Thank you. You
really did make me see things in a new way. You’re right. I would not be
comfortable with that distinction. I would not be able to accept it. In
fact, I would say pretty much what you just said: that you’re trying to
kill my identity.

ART: See? Now you understand how we feel.

PETER: Yes, I think I do. Thank you very much for showing me that.
But do you realize what you’ve just said? What you’ve just showed me?

1 comment:

Putting aside the conclusion for a moment, this is indeed the issue for some on the "love the sinner, not the sin".

Merely positing that homosexual acts are sinful begins the complete rejection of this line of thought by the gay person, who desires social acceptance.

The path beyond tolerance, beyond acceptance (with civil unions) has moved to a demand for total endorsement. The Gay Marriage debate will not be over once the meaning of marriage is broadened and diluted to include gay couplings, because it is not really the goal. The goal is endorsement, so ironically, it may well be a case of "we love you Christians but we have to throw you in jail for your sinful (illiberal) thoughts."

About Me

John Tertullian and Contra Celsum are pseudonyms. The name "John" has reference to the sovereign saving grace of God, in which we publicly confess to stand. Tertullian was one of the earliest apologetes of the Christian Church, celebrated for his insistence upon the sharp antithesis between Christian belief and unbelief.
Celsum was an early opponent of the Gospel. One of the early Church fathers, Origen, in his work Contra Celsus completely dismantled the attack of Celsum. Our blog publishes in the spirit of Tertullian and Origen.